L.A. Hard Rock Band – Operator

Maybe you’ve heard the galvanizing new single on rock radio—the one with the huge, inexorable riff and the oh-so-powerfully-familiar vocal track, the lead singer wailing like a banshee in the throes of some berserker madness. The name of the song is “Soulcrusher,” and no, it’s not a lost track from Seattle-era superheavies Soundgarden, nor is it a fresh cut from ex-‘garden frontman Chris Cornell’s new solo album.

The band’s name is Operator, a Los Angeles-based five-piece rock outfit fronted by Johnny Strong, a young mixed martial arts enthusiast possessed of a distinctly Cornellian set of pipes.

A group of mostly unknown SoCal-area up-and-comers, Operator also features one established rocker in the person of former Floridian Paul Phillips, ex-guitarist for the poor-man’s-Nirvana Nu-metal outfit Puddle of Mudd. The band is currently touring, playing a series of free and low-cost radio-sponsored shows in support of its forthcoming Atlantic Records debut Soulcrusher .

“Chris Cornell is one of the greatest rock singers of all time, so I think it could be worse,” Phillips says of the comparisons, which have followed the band ever since the release of the “Soulcrusher” single.

“You could be compared to way worse,” he continues. “It is what it is. He opens his mouth and that’s what he sounds like, so it’s not like he’s going, ‘oh, I’ve got to sound like Cornell.’ It’s just what happens. Luckily, Johnny’s got an amazing voice and he nails it every night. So we certainly don’t take the comparison as a criticism, and we’re not complaining about it.”

Phillips joined the roughly four-year-old band two years ago. A Jacksonville ex-pat, he’d been living in Los Angeles since 1999, when he journeyed westward to enlist in Puddle of Mudd. He stayed with the band through two successful major label releases before quitting in 2004, a move motivated by both musical and personal differences.

“It came a time where I had to leave [Puddle of Mudd] to maintain my sanity and my integrity,” Phillips says. “I had to jump ship. I put out a bunch of calls, and got a call back from a friend who said, ‘hey, there’s a guy in L.A. who sings with this band called Operator, and you should really check them out.’

“So I went over to Johnny’s house and we started writing and demo-ing songs. We got the demos to Atlantic and Atlantic liked them. Since then, everything’s been great.”

Strong’s is the band’s dominant personality—its principle songwriter, its stellar vocal talent, and its most striking visual presence with his shirtless, carved physique, honed through years of martial arts training.

Phillips says Strong no longer competes—at least not regularly—in mixed martial arts tournaments, as he did prior to the band’s signing with Atlantic. “It’s not as serious anymore, just because we can’t have him showing up with a broken nose or something,” Phillips says. “We try to limit the competitions. You can’t go busting out a knee when you have to go on stage and rock.”

But he says Strong still trains fanatically, cleaving to a diet of mostly organic foods, even on the road with a collection of bandmates still prone to rock-star excess. “There’s the healthy side of the band and the crazy side of the band,” Phillips laughs. “There’s definitely a lot of partying going on, especially where I’m concerned. Johnny, definitely no, but with the rest of the band… we go from one end of the spectrum to the complete opposite.”

It remains to be seen whether the rest of Operator’s Atlantic debut, due out July 10, will fulfill the promise of the band’s crushing first single—though an early Penthouse review gave the Soulcrusher album five stars, calling it a must-have for rock fans still misty-eyed for the heyday of Grunge. “I think we turned in a true album,” Phillips says, “not like one of those bands that just has one song.

“I think I hear a little bit of the spirit of rock coming back in music now, that spirit from the time when rock was dangerous and had substance. When rock wasn’t just a faceless song that sounded good on the radio. It seems like there’s more straight up rock’n’roll. People just want to play the guitar and turn it up loud. Play it like it’s meant to be played.”

Rate this:

Related

Comments

Greeting from Pakistan!! I heard the song “Nothing to lose” while playing the videogame Burnout Paradise and totally loved it. After listening to some of their other songs i bought the album and IT IS AWESOME. These guys are totally KICKASS. I really hope they make it big. And Johnny Strong is a great vocalist, no two ways about it. My favourite songs from their album are Nothing to Lose, So Little Time, Dark Cloud and The Only One.

My cousin started an unofficial website for Johnny Strong and burned me a copy of their CD which took me months to listen to, but once I did–WOW!!!
I hope this band never gets put on the back burner because4 they try rock. If anyone is intereted in that other website, here it is:http://www.ujsfc.com
Check it out….

i don’t think they sound anything like soundgarden, when i first heard soulcrusher i thought it was from the new megadeth disc, but then again, i’m a fucking idiot, whoever they sound like, they fucking rock.

I just started hearing this song on Sirius and I’m blown away. This is the kind of music I’ve been waiting to hear again, powerful, riveting. It pulls you in and just makes you feel alive. It’s true it sounds like old Soundgarden, but hell there is nothing wrong with that. This is what we need more of on the music scene. This band will be on the top of my must listen too list for a long time to come.. Keep pounding it out boys, for as long I’m able to hear, I’m listening!